


i had a dream, i got everything i wanted

by RaisingCaiin



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, M/M, Misunderstandings, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Near Death Experiences, Spoilers, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, because communication and miscommunication are My Brand (tm)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-20
Updated: 2019-12-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21869182
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RaisingCaiin/pseuds/RaisingCaiin
Summary: This time, there's no way to win or luck or cheat their way out of things, and that makes Poe's questions just a little bit harder to brush aside.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn, hinted future Poe Dameron/Finn/Rey
Comments: 4
Kudos: 130





	i had a dream, i got everything i wanted

**Author's Note:**

> SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER  
> . . . 
> 
> . . . 
> 
> . . . 
> 
> seriously i'm having a lot of feelings about this movie, and especially certain parts of it, so spoilers ahead. also i literally just watched it, so dialogue may not be 100% spot on
> 
> also, this was written with billie eilish's most excellent song ["everything i wanted"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5QbFSn4ztvs) on a loop in my head, because what an A+++ ship song

They are going to die.

And this time, this death, there's no way to win or luck or cheat their way out of it. Overpowered, outnumbered, outgunned, Poe shot, now arranged with their unprotected backs to an impersonal set of gleaming white helmets and an even brighter set of gleaming black barrels –

Finn has seen this kind of setup before. Just, from the other side of it.

 _A training exercise_ , they'd called it then. He, like the rest of the cadets on the sidelines made to watch, couldn't have been more than seven years old at the time. They hadn't been told what it was training _for_ , but at the same time they were also too well-trained to ask.

And so. Finn knows that they are going to die here, executed like criminals in the shining entrails of an Imperial destroyer, which is convenient for the helmets behind them because the trash compactor is just the next corridor over. They won't have far to drag the bodies, when it's done, which will be _kriffin' handy_ for them because Wookies are _kriffin' huge_.

And yet. For some _kriffin' reason, right kriffin' now,_ Poe decides that this is the time to demand: "What were you going to tell her?"

His grip on Finn's arm is shaking, and it leaves an unmistakable smear of blood in its wake. His voice is surprisingly strong for a man just recently shot in the side with a blaster at short range, but then, adrenaline will do strange things to a man, and whether it's the adrenaline of being _kriffin' shot_ or of being about to _kriffin' die_ doesn’t seem to matter to Poe in the slightest. His eyes are bright with it, his breath is short with it, and his gaze bores into Finn as if he could pull the answer right kriffin' out of him.

And Finn already knows exactly what Poe is asking – it already feels like he had come so damn close to the truth back in those tunnels anyway, intuiting somehow that Finn's answer wasn't something that he wanted Poe to hear – but in case he might have _kriffin' forgotten,_ Poe rushes to _kriffin' clarify._

"Rey. Back on Passana. What were you going to tell her?" he demands, ignoring the commands for them to shut up, stop talking. And just –

No, kriff no, _kriff_ no. This is not how Finn had wanted to tell him, this is not how Finn had wanted him to find out. Force knows that Finn had already been regretting his brusqueness in the tunnels, had _known_ even then that Poe would be scared of what he might say and how he might say it, and Force knows that Finn doesn't want to do this now, knows that Poe is still scared of what he wanted to say and why he might have said it.

And it's not that Poe doesn't deserve to hear it, because he does. It's that –

Rey should have heard it at the same time. 

And it's also that Finn doesn't want Poe to die angry, or hurting, or regretting.

Actually, Finn doesn't want Poe to die at all, but Finn has seen this kind of set-up before, and that kind of blaster wound before, and he kriffin' knows that Poe is going to die here no matter _what_ Finn kriffin' wants.

He can't save Poe – not here, not now, not this time. All he can do is try to save Poe a little heartbreak before he dies.

But Force help him, his attempt at saving Poe just that one more drop of pain comes out as a pained hiss: "You really think this is the time, Poe?"

And Poe must hear it for the refusal he's been expecting, because something in his eyes dies, right there as Finn kriffin' _watches_. His grasp on Finn's arm loosens and then drops, and with his hand gone, the streak of blood it leaves behind on Finn's sleeve is a whole lot darker and harder to ignore.

"There's not gonna be a time later, though," Poe tells him, voice gone quiet and numb with that very pain that Finn was trying _so kriffin' hard_ to prevent in the first place. "Is there, buddy?"

"No," Finn admits, his own voice falling to match Poe's. Because they've both been in enough life-or-death scenarios to know that this ain't one of them, and Poe must think that if Finn is refusing to tell him even _now_ , then –

Then whatever it is that Finn was going to tell Rey, it's something big enough, important enough, _secret_ enough, that Finn would rather die twice over than tell Poe what it is.

The way this realization settles over Poe's face – the way his hands fall forward the rest of the way in front of himself, the way his proud shoulders sag with deadened resignation –

Watching that hurts Finn worse than dying will.

So.

 _Kriff_ this.

"Wanted to tell her that I love her," he says quietly, and he hates, hates, _hates_ how the first – and oh _kriff,_ the _last_ – time this admission has ever actually left his mouth is in the bowels of an Imperial ship, staring at a shining wall that his guts are about to decorate, and with the man he also loves just as much as he loves Rey, there and _also_ kriffin' dying at his side.

"Yeah?" Poe asks. "Huh." There's a tiny spark in his voice now, underneath that deadened tone that Finn had so hated, and for some really weird reason it doesn't much sound like the jealousy that Finn had been worried it would be.

Or maybe it's just that their impending death, and the looming loss of so many of the Resistance's chances, is causing Finn's mind to lose it altogether. 

There's talking behind them, that kriffin' red-headed general demanding a blaster because he wants the kriffin' pleasure of finishing them off himself, and it's not enough time to explain but it's already more time than Finn thought he would get, so he risks turning, just a bit, so that he can look Poe in the eye as he adds what he can, quick as he can.

"Yeah," he says quietly, repeating Poe's only reaction. "Been meaning to tell her as much, when we all had a second to ourselves to _talk_ instead of you an' me running off on madcap missions we keep _almost-kriffin'-dying_ on, and her being stuck back on the ground _training to be a Jedi_."

Behind them the talking seems to have stopped, and there's the sound of a blaster being passed from armored hands to gloved ones, so Finn races on, because if his last kriffin' words aren't going to be to Rey, telling her something that he should have had the guts to say long, longggg before they both thought they were going to suffocate in quicksand in a kriffin' forbidden desert, then his last words are damn well going to be to Poe, assuring him that Finn had always meant to tell him too, even if it had all come out a little rushed in Passana because he _kriffin' thought he was kriffin' dying_ and here they are about to die for real this time. 

So.

"Been meaning to tell her that you an' me are pretty damn good together, if I do say so myself," Finn whispers. His hearing's sharp, and he knows what an Imperial-make blaster sounds like when it's being cocked. "But you an' me an' her might have been even kriffin' better."

And Finn has to turn away then, because Poe's eyes are growing wide with shock, and there's really no way of knowing – is it the blood loss? is he hearing the blaster being cocked too? Or has Finn been right, that a part of the reason he and Poe have been quarreling more lately is not just the stress of war-time missions, but also the way that they're good, real good, together, but not quite as good without a third certain someone there in the cockpit between them?

And Poe is just taking in a deep breath – Finn has a split second to wonder if there is time for him to actually learn what Poe thinks – before there's blaster fire behind them, and, well –

At least some of what he needed to say finally got said, Finn thinks, screwing his eyes shut in anticipation of that searing burn in his back. Selfishly, he hopes they shoot him before he has to hear Poe scream. 


End file.
